Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an authenticity determination system, a feature point registration apparatus and method of controlling the operation thereof, as well as a matching determination apparatus and method of controlling the operation thereof.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years the market for counterfeit drugs, especially counterfeit drugs of the tablet type, has grown rapidly worldwide and is a major social problem. In order to discover a counterfeit tablet, methods currently employed include a method of impregnating the surface of a genuine tablet with a special chemical and then detecting this special chemical to thereby distinguish between a genuine tablet and a counterfeit tablet, and a method of printing a hologram on the package that contains the genuine tablets. In addition, there is also a method irradiating a tablet with laser light and identifying whether a tablet is a genuine tablet or a counterfeit table using the spectrum pattern of the reflected light.
Pattern matching using images is known in the art (Patent Documents 1, 2). By utilizing pattern matching, a genuine tablet image identical with a target tablet image under examination is searched from among a number genuine tablet images registered in advance, whereby it can be determined whether the target tablet is genuine or not. Patent Document 3 describes a method of extracting feature points and feature quantities from an image file and from a searched image, and retrieving an image file having a feature quantity that matches or resembles the feature quantity of the searched image. Patent Document 4 describes a method of calculating correlation values between a reference image and a cross-check image and determining the authenticity of a paper document represented by the cross-check image.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-258940    Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-178442    Patent Document 3: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2012-133484    Patent Document 4: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-38389
In a case where there are a large number of genuine tablet images, however, subjecting all of these genuine tablet images to processing one by one and calculating correlation values between the genuine tablet images and a target tablet image under examination results in a great amount of calculation and obtaining the final result of the determination takes a very long time.